


go to bigger better things - nct

by arrowthroughtheheart



Series: Rude Boys Hit the Track [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Body Modification, Dysfunctional Family, Lee Taeyong-centric, M/M, Mad Scientists, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Miscommunication, Nightmare Fuel, Non-Consensual Body Modification, OOC characters, OOOOOOOH THAT TAG HITS THE EXACT MF SPOT, OT23 but not all mentioned yet, Parental Lee Taeyong, Post-Apocalypse, Weird Plot Shit, but dasokay bc its MY characterization, but he's a lot confused, characters are usually referred as their real names instead of stage names, family complications, i wanna hug mark lee, jealous Jaehyun, misfit gang vs maw gang: the fic, plot goes forward or backward who knows, sigh, sungchan talks quite a lot, taeyong communicates really badly: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27470452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrowthroughtheheart/pseuds/arrowthroughtheheart
Summary: “You don’t have to wear the thermal goggles now, Sungchan, if it hinders your work,” Mark offers, and the youngest among the three looks up at him, head tilting. “I’m working here, too?” Sungchan questions.“Sungchan can keep it on if he feels fashionable with the goggles, Minhyung,” Taeyong cuts in, though his eyes are focused on something projected in the monitors specifically meant to supervise Level 19. “Don’t be a party pooper, will you? It’s okay, Sungchan, you look good with the goggles on.”
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Lee Taeyong, Jung Sungchan/Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun, Jung Sungchan/Mark Lee, Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong, Lee Taeyong/NCT Ensemble, Mark Lee/Lee Taeyong
Series: Rude Boys Hit the Track [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2007070
Kudos: 21





	go to bigger better things - nct

**Author's Note:**

> notes! since taeyong likes calling his friends with their birthname rather than their nicknames in this story (that's why i change back and forth with how o t h e r s call certain ppl and how taeyong calls them) here's the list, if ur new to the fandom.
> 
> Jung Yoonoh: Jung Jaehyun  
> Lee Minhyung: Mark Lee  
> Wong Guanheng/Kunhang: Hendery  
> Xiao De Jun: Xiaojun  
> Seo Youngho: Johnny Seo  
> and I believe everyone else is the same, since they either don't have a nickname--or sumn.
> 
> disclaimer!  
> this is my first attempt at updating parts of a gigantic story under the same series, so the ones i'm going to update in the future, if it serves the same plot as this one, will not be accurate, timeline-wise. you can ask me for the correct order, or enjoy reading them in messy parts (as it is intended to be), so if it's partly confusing rn, feel free to tell me! (and i'll see if i can. . . answer your questions. or not)

“Consider us lucky,” Taeyong sets the miniscule remnants of what was once a cigarette down by the corner of an angle his soles and the wall made, the muted smoke and scent of burning carcinogenic odor fuming beyond his crouched shoulders. “Lucky?” Mark made a point to look up, and without having to spare the younger a glance, Taeyong figured out soon enough that he’s panicking  _ slightly.  _

“Lucky,” Taeyong repeats, casting his eyes to the side when the sound of a door slamming to a close reverberates through the closed halls they’re in at the moment. Sungchan’s eyes are wholly focused on Mark’s--also--confused state, but Taeyong gave the younger two little to no explanations. “We’ve anchored Dong Sicheng to our side a few months ago, rest assured that your precious babies are going to appear out of nowhere in the spot you want them to, Sungchan,” was what Taeyong finally stated. 

“We’re lucky because Sicheng is our  _ dealer?”  _ Mark repeats, picking up the habits of his older partner. 

The door creaks open in front of them, revealing the hindrance they’ve been waiting for. Taeyong’s hands move fast enough to escape the man’s eyes; someone dressed way too formal for his occasion of working as a security, moreover remembering the fact that all this man has to do is watch the security cameras in this particularly cramped room--and as someone who judges people’s reflexes as a living, Taeyong judges that the security man this building hired juxtapose their advertised family-friendly environment. The man’s movements were sluggish and tired, as if bored of life and its thrills. As someone who works in a five-hundred meter tall building, it seems appealing that he’ll someday lose it and. . . jump. 

If only Taeyong didn’t grab the nearest vase with one hand and the man’s neck with the other, and made them meet halfway. 

_ “Fuck,”  _ Taeyong curses, letting the bruised and unconscious man fall to the floor first before he manages to put the heavy vase back down, courtesy of a concerned Sungchan trying to help. “What?” Mark cringes, holding the abandoned door open. “I squished my fucking thumb between the two of them- fuck. I’m fucking stupid,” Taeyong huffs, forgetting completely to be quiet. Mark was about to retaliate from the sentence Taeyong himself spat out--with a joke--but the older shot him a look, his thumb blooming purple flowery bruises. 

Mark leaned down to help a disgruntled Sungchan drag the convulsing seizure man inside his room of CCTV when Taeyong flips around, hands on his hip. “Why did you call Sicheng our dealer? It’s not like we’re waiting for drugs, Minhyung.”

“I know,” Mark sighs, running his shoulder against the base of Taeyong’s calf on purpose, “was a joke.”

“You don’t have to wear the thermal goggles now, Sungchan, if it hinders your work,” Mark offers, and the youngest among the three looks up at him, head tilting. Mark can’t actually figure out the younger’s facial expressions, since the frame of his goggles are on the way, revealing only his pout and a few small inches of his forehead. “I’m working here, too?” Sungchan questions at the exact same time Taeyong swings his feet onto the table, his right palm hovering over the monitors; who are changing scenery every now and then, flickering automatically. 

“Yes,” Mark answers, “help me gag this man.”

“Sungchan can keep it on if he feels fashionable with the goggles, Minhyung,” Taeyong cuts in, though his eyes are focused on something projected in the monitors specifically meant to supervise Level 19. “Don’t be a party pooper, will you? It’s okay, Sungchan, you look good with the goggles on.”

“Uhm-” Sungchan stutters, and Mark stops himself from dropping honorifics with Lee Taeyong at this exact moment. “No, no,  _ hyung,  _ it’s okay. I was just trying it on to see if it works or not.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Taeyong replies, his fingers tapping uncharacteristically fast on the monitor’s touch screens. Mark’s interest was piqued, seeing this. “Anything Sicheng got his hands on weirdly works well. I don’t know how he does it, either.”

“You found something,  _ hyung?”  _ Mark questions, though he didn’t phrase it to be, only to continue, quieter now; “. . .or do you see Jaehyun, anywhere?”

“Impossible. Us luring Yoonoh out only works the way I want it to, okay? Even if he works in this godforsaken amusement park for a living, he won’t reveal himself that easily. It’s been twelve years, and he’s tried his best to be a mysterious enigma. Surveillance cameras  _ anywhere  _ wouldn’t catch him,” Taeyong spared Mark a glance, suspicious in its woke, but the bite fades in time, “I thought you’d know that, at least.”

“Well, I’m  _ anxious,”  _ Mark shrugs, handing a material of fabric onto Sungchan’s direction, not minding how he’s looking at his two seniors with wide eyes. “They planted a tracking device within me, this one time, and it was barely a fluke that you managed to get me out in time.”

“Oh, they know,” Taeyong huffs, irritated, “they know we’re here. Yangyang wasn’t able to turn your tracking device off, neither did we ever figure out where they planted it. For all we know it could be liquid.”

“And this time you want to, what, catch Jaehyun  _ hyung?” _

Taeyong turns on his seat, his index finger still pressed onto the touch screen monitor, keeping something in place. 

“I told everyone the plan three days ago, and we went through it with Youngho a few hours ago. Don’t tell me your ability to remember details were hindered from being drugged over and over by people as weak as fucking  _ scientists?”  _ Taeyong questions, and at this point, his two younger friends flinched back, though for two different reasons. “Okay, wait,” Sungchan bops his fist on top of the unconscious man’s slacked jaw to make sure his balled up fabric stays lodged in place before he moves forward on his knees, trying to break a fight before it happens. “I think that’s a bit  _ too  _ far,  _ hyung-”  _ he managed to say, sparing a glance at Taeyong, but Mark stopped him from moving further.

“You’d know if you  _ tried,  _ Lee Taeyong-”

“Don’t give me that,” Taeyong turns away from Mark and Sungchan’s heated eyes, though the latter is just trying his best to delay a brawl from breaking out. “I  _ did  _ try, Lee Minhyung. We were torn apart only to be filled back up,” he took a breather, fingers curling around a pseudo cigarette stick he desperately wished he had right about now, “cut into pieces only for them to reattach the strings, decapitated and  _ murdered  _ only to be brought back to life-” he turns around, the red chair he’s seated on creaking, asking for mercy.

“I  _ know.” _

Sungchan is cringing over something in the corner by now, whether it be the trauma they all share, along with a few other people who don’t exist in this room at this point--or because this is the most intense Taeyong has ever looked, ever since he got hooked under the older’s wing. “We went through it together, Minhyung.”

“Yet you let me go through it again,” Mark gritted his teeth, his left fist still holding onto the front of Sungchan’s shirt, as if it’ll give him the amount of assurance he needed if only he squeezed hard enough.  _ “Alone.” _

The numb and tasteless ticking of the corporate-blueprint clock behind them sounded as if it’s louder than words, at the moment, and Mark lost his composure.

“Why did you even pick a fight with Jaehyun in the first place?”

Sungchan knew this was the moment he had to grab a hold of Mark, since without his support, the older man would probably be pretty useless, his knees giving out like stems of old sunflowers, rotting underneath a burning sun which was once its entire source of life. Taeyong, for lack of a better word, looks hurt. Offended, as if his pride was snatched away from him and stepped until less than the remnants of its fossils exist. The rim of his eyes were red, at this point, and its possibilities differ from lack of sleep to pure  _ rage.  _

“So none of us become mere lab bunnies, Lee Minhyung,” Taeyong spits out his younger partner’s name as if it’s venom, and Sungchan twitched from underneath Mark’s flaccid body as if the anger was pointed at him. “Like  _ them,”  _ Taeyong jostles the surface of his index finger onto the monitor, and only then do Mark and Sungchan receive the right to look at the surveillance camera from Level 19. 

Horrifying was an understatement. 

“If you were that righteous,  _ hyung-” _

“I’m  _ not  _ righteous!” Taeyong cuts Mark in the middle of his questions, his voice a decibel above screeching, inhuman. Mark continued, though, slow and steady as if he’s not giving up. And he isn’t. “If you were that righteous,  _ hyung,  _ why did you kill all those people, before you found a way to get yourself under control?”

Taeyong scratches the top of his head, losing his mind. “Shut the fuck up.”

“If you were  _ ever  _ righteous,  _ hyung,”  _ Mark puts the back of his palm onto his watery eyelids, pressing them there until he sees fireflies. “Why can’t you save everyone?”

“Kidnapping Jaehyun  _ hyung  _ means you’re as selfish as he is. Because I know damn well there’s not a single bone in you that would allow yourself to kill him, is it? It means all you two ever care about is not  _ anyone’s  _ well being, whether it be the modified humans they dubbed as monsters or. . . or humanity. It’s always been like that, does it not? He puts you above everyone else, and you put him above everyone else,” Mark pushes himself off of Sungchan, ending up on his hands and knees, eyes facing the ground in front of him. “Who?” he sobs, “Who gave you two this much power over everyone’s souls?”

“You two string  _ so many  _ innocent people into this- innocent  _ kids!  _ What were they supposed to do except blindly accept the conditions, blindly follow you wherever you two go- fuck,” Mark wheezes out a cough, bringing his right arm underneath his face, once again pressing them onto the surface of his skin as if doing it a significant amount of time would open up a hole on his eye cavity and allow his fist entrance. 

A short-lived, yet painful shout ripped itself out of his lungs. 

Sungchan staggered backwards, his back forced upon the door. His eyes flew shortly to Taeyong’s face; dead calm, save for the few wrinkles on his forehead and between his two eyes. His two, crazy looking eyes. 

“And I’m supposed to fucking lead you,” Mark continues, voice an entire level louder than before, and at this point Sungchan’s palms are shaking, covered in a sheen layer of sweat. “Into a plan that would, somehow, lead  _ you  _ to victory? With less than a half of a hundred percent chance of you coming out of it without dying?”

He looks up now, and Taeyong flinches. 

“And then, what? If you died? What do you think Jaehyun  _ hyung  _ would do, spare us? Take us into his safe house? Won’t we be dissected yet again? Used as pawns to assure world peace?” Mark grovels over to the seat Taeyong vacated. “They’ll broadcast the fucking day our organs will be obliterated from the inside out, and your friend’s generous and brave face will be over all the vicious human-murder, smiling as if he’s a hero. What  _ then?  _ You promised us safety,  _ hyung,  _ you did once.”

_ “Confronting  _ your psychotic friend isn’t exactly the ideal way of staying safe,” Mark’s hand hover over the monitors, typing in the numbers to the desired floor he’s assigned to watch over. Whatever he saw in there made him heave, sending him further into his crying mess, but Taeyong held a hand in front of Sungchan, who was on his way to comfort his senior. 

“Mission aborted.”

“Mi-  _ huh?!”  _ Sungchan’s mood took a wholehearted turn as his eyes left Mark’s hunched over figure to where Taeyong is standing, only a few centimetres away from where he’s standing. “Minhyung’s right. Ever since I met all of you, aside from Youngho, I’ve never asked for your opinions. Forced you to side with me because I fed you and kept you alive. I also didn’t provide enough and thorough information about the state of the world, what happened before, why you were forced into going against the people you love,” Taeyong huffs, the front of his bangs moving against gravity with his last intake of breath. They come back down on the sides of his face after a while, and Taeyong’s gaze flickered over to Sungchan. “It’s only fair that I avenge the things I want revenge on by myself, especially when the conditions are. . . as I have listed.”

Sungchan looks over at Mark, hoping for the older to return his gaze with the same wavelength of indignance. Mark wasn’t looking at the two of them at all, his back still shaking from the force of his sobs. 

“Minhyung,” Taeyong calls out again, sounding a lot more reclused and fond, if compared to all the other times he’s called out to Mark. “I’m. . .” he shifts from one feet to the other, leaning upon his left foot as the hand he used to hold Sungchan back retreated, as well. 

“I’m sorry I took your utopia away.”

Mark is leaning against the monitor, refusing to look at the speaker. 

“I just thought if I could at least extinguish our prime, blood-thirsty predators, then, well, the paradise we all deserve would be slightly more. . . peaceful, to say the least,” was the next thing which came out of Taeyong’s mouth. “Forgive me for noticing how dire the situation was only after it got to this point. Must’ve felt horrible for you, to cry and break down like that,” he clears his throat, sounding more awkward then than ever before, “I’m sorry. We’ll take different paths, from now on.”

_ “Hyung,”  _ Sungchan rose on his feet as Taeyong fiddled with his screwdriver. At the sound of the door closing and someone’s breath heaving, as if relieved, Sungchan lets his back hit the wall, sliding down without feeling the need to fight gravity. 

“No way.”

. . . .

It’s nothing sort of new for Taeyong to be pushed into working by himself. Only this time, he’s a hundred and ten percent sure his plan worked. He  _ isn’t  _ by himself, and if he has to bend over, break the bones of his spine and stretch the band as far as it goes to see it work, he’ll do just that. Though to be honest, those things won’t ever count as a plan. Things you have in your own mind, things you built while everyone else is asleep, and you should be too--but instead your brain is busy buzzing as if it’s a queen bee demanding every single cell in its hive to work. 

It counts as manipulation.

But he’s never sold himself short of these things. Anything to get his plans to work. Anything. Even if it means using the same exact damn thing his enemy drank and partied about, thinking it’s a victory on their side. Even if it means drawing out enough emotions out of his own family, enough to exhaust them. 

Then again, it’s only manipulation if Taeyong doesn’t mean what he says. He means it. If Minhyung and Sungchan want to--which won’t happen, either way, because Sungchan’s a big part of Taeyong’s plan and he’s so  _ goddamn  _ sure it’ll work--they  _ could  _ round up the rest of Taeyong’s members up and force them to leave under some sort of lie, those two are very much capable of that. They’re in the CCTV monitor room, which means they’d at least have a few simple clues of where everyone else is, aside from the fact that they’ve been  _ told  _ the plan. Another thing is the fact that those two in particular have enough resources to pull away everyone from the ongoing mission. Yes, even Seo Youngho.

But they’re not  _ going  _ to. And Taeyong knows that, but he risked giving them permission to leave. So does that actually count, as manipulation? God knows.

All he knows is Jung Yoonoh is going to  _ think  _ that little old Taeyong is abandoned, on his own, and he’s going to come unharmed.

Because that’s been his brand, since the first day.

“I trust that you’ll never harm me, so I won’t hurt you. Ever.”

Stupidity, Taeyong assumes. Or. . . attraction. Hope, even, obsession. Whichever one of these things apply to his Yoonoh--or all of them, even--he’s going to come waddling over to the bait Taeyong has dangled with a gaping mouth, like fishes when they see the slightest hint of wriggly worm. This’ll hurt him, but at least then it wouldn’t be Taeyong. 

So he wouldn’t be lying, would he?

There’s a level in this building; as Taeyong’s research shows--on the highest floor, where they pulled lady luck’s legs to give them enough bravery so they’d allow themselves to install  _ glass tiles  _ as a permanent base on the last few floors, heading towards the rooftop. It was insane, designed as an entertainment spot for people with the strongest hearts, but at the moment it provided Taeyong the exact leeway he needed.  _ That  _ is where his greatest show is going to play out, and he’s more than sure that his first audience--and his co-star--is already there.

However much Taeyong feels the need to deny this building of praise, since this was the place he and none other than Mark got dragged into and ‘modified’, for lack of a better phrase, since he’s unable to find any - the last few floors were majestically built. 

He’s aware that the first few levels of this building is an internationally known amusement park first before an outbreak caused all that to close and the scientists to invest themselves in the upper-levels, tainting the once pristine walls  _ red-- _ but the sheer thought of calling any part of this building ‘gorgeous’ repulsed him. Not now, apparently, since there’s no better word to describe the sashaying rays of sun from the blocks of glass tiles, shyly draping themselves all over his skin as if they’re fractured diamonds. The texture of the glass tiles have definitely made the aesthetic purposes of sunlight heightened, but then again, Taeyong’s a simple man who never denied himself of beauty.

It’s basically the utmost thing which got him into the mess he’s curated himself upon, and the  _ other  _ reason is right there. Standing in the middle of the top floor as if he’s king of the graveyard, hands folded behind himself in a show of calmness. As if he’s unbothered. As if he’s still sure Taeyong won’t ever hurt him. 

He’s wrong, of course. Jung Yoonoh is wrong. For doing everything he’s been doing to Taeyong? No. Taeyong’s grown enough from his mistakes to know that he’s the last man on earth to ever be allowed to forgive, since his sins stacked up into a tower taller than Yoonoh’s will ever be. He’s wrong with Taeyong not being able to hurt him, though. He’s willing to.

It’s been twelve years, and as Taeyong and Jaehyun grew apart, so did Yoonoh’s importance in Taeyong’s life. He’s no longer Taeyong’s priority. He should, Taeyong thinks, at least acknowledge that, instead of standing around as if he’s there to meet his boyfriend and they’d tour around Lotte World holding each other's hands. 

_ As if they’ve ever experienced that, when they were younger. No. Not even that. _

Taeyong thinks, as he approaches Yoonoh, that the two of them--though not only the two of them, he remembers, flinching as if Minhyung is right there, giving him the bitter facts--are the embodiment of missing a big part of humanity. Missing childhood, sure. Missing their teenage years, even more so. Missing their adulthood. 

And he’s  _ mad. _

Mad that this person in front of him told him time and time again that he  _ loves  _ Taeyong, that his entire life was built upon protecting him from any harm. Mad that even though Yoonoh says all that with the purest form of truth possible, he still doesn’t see why it’s necessary to protect Taeyong’s friends, too. His  _ family.  _ Mad of how Yoonoh seems unable to accept that, the fact that they’re not the most important people in existence, even more than everyone else. Mad that they can’t extricate themselves from the war that humanity waged upon its own people, but even more mad that Yoonoh  _ wants  _ to. Wants to leave, wants to turn a blind eye upon anyone.

He’s fuming.

Why did Yoonoh let all that happen? Why did he sit on the sidelines and not stop the unfairness that the ‘monsters’ are facing?

He said he cared for Taeyong,  _ loved,  _ even.

Why did he do nothing, then?

Jaehyun’s face is serene. Happy. His dimples are showing, as he’s curving his smile up to the heavens as if Taeyong’s walking down the aisle to meet his hand and with that they’ll vow for a life together. 

Taeyong has a few feet left before he’s in a range close enough to touch Jaehyun’s shoulder. A few feet left.

And his anger spilled everywhere.

“Asshole!”

He yowled, like a cat getting submerged under water, as he  _ pounces.  _ Taeyong’s entire body left the floor as he jumped on top of Yoonoh, the tactic seemingly working for a few short seconds since the younger has a few centimetres of benefit when it comes to height, if compared to Taeyong. His two legs hooked onto Jaehyun’s inner thighs and his elbows dug themselves to the sides of Jaehyun’s neck --if he hadn’t moved. 

It’s comical in a satire-comedy way, to Taeyong; how Yoonoh barely flinched at this random attack yet looked equally surprised and not, at the same time. He probably  _ was  _ shocked, though, considering that was his first reaction, and his calm and composed nature came after, hesitant and almost a heartbeat too late. He also turned way calmer than before, even when Taeyong compared it to before his own presence was known by Yoonoh, which meant his calmness is. . . fake. 

How many more things that his Yoonoh did were fake, Taeyong thinks, that he’s been fooled this entire time? If he even is fooled, at all.

This invited a bitter smile on the corner of Taeyong’s twitching lips.

_ Probably every single thing he’s said, at this point in life. _

“Taeyong-” Jaehyun called out, flinching a little bit when he realized that his tone was a lot more. . . condescending than he wanted it to be. “If you’d just wait-”

“Wait for  _ what,  _ exactly?” Taeyong retaliates, his habit of not letting anyone finish slipping right between his fingertips. He tries his best to ignore how he’s not masking himself at all, in this moment, by shoving a thoroughly prepared, balled up fist between his legs, which were trapping Yoonoh’s torso. It hits not too far away from the younger man’s kidney, and Jaehyun heaves a pained sigh as he lifts his left arm to rotate Taeyong’s entire body  _ away  _ from trapping him in a small, confined space. 

Of course Jaehyun’s sheer brute force drove Taeyong away from his body.  _ Of course.  _ It’s Taeyong’s personal fault for not having a stable stance, choosing to dangle along Yoonoh’s body instead. Fair. He’d try harder from now on. 

Taeyong flipped his fall to an escape route, rolling on his side to claim enough space between them before choosing to stand back up, weary of guns being pulled out of nowhere. Unfortunately, Yoonoh’s playing it clean. Which is a shame, since  _ he  _ isn’t. 

“Why- why did you part ways with Mark?” Jaehyun holds his right hand up, trying to beg for time. Taeyong doesn’t feel like being fair. “Why the fuck else?” Taeyong frowns, already shoving his feet onto a stance he knows is most safe, at the moment. Safe from being dodged to a fall again, and. . . something else. “You let fucking scientists dig him up yet again. Drugged, to top it all off?” Taeyong spared a glance to the floor, squinting to get a grip of the ground down below, beyond the glass tiles. “Truly unforgivable,” he took a few light steps to the left, and naturally, a still heaving Yoonoh follows, stepping  _ away  _ from him. 

“If I tried to stop them, Taeyong, you  _ know  _ what they’ll do to me,” Jaehyun speaks, almost taking a step forward into Taeyong’s attack bubble. “You should fucking try, then!” Taeyong shrieked, putting both his fists up, balling them hard enough he’s sure the crescent shapes blooming on his palm won’t fade even after a while. The skin is breaking under his nails. “It’s not that fucking bad, I heard,” he continues, snorting. It’s the funniest thing he’s ever said today, and he’s said quite a lot. Or maybe not. Maybe it’s all in his head.

_ Step, step. _

“It only stings for a while, Yoonoh,” Taeyong huffs, watching as Yoonoh shifts away yet again, completely avoiding Taeyong’s attack bubble he’s overly familiar with. “It stings when they fucking shove the knife through the tip of your rib, all the way down. Down, down,  _ down,  _ and then they’d stop because they’re not strong enough to rip your hip bones open. Bones are hard, someone commented. I heard them talk, you know. Discuss things. And then it hurts a  _ lot,  _ it’s like fucking  _ hell  _ when your brain registered the fact that you can’t restitch your skin back together by sheer will! And it’s gaping open, and it’s warm, and blood is spilling all over. And they sigh as if  _ they’re  _ the ones who had it hard, oh, those people-” Taeyong stops his moving index finger on the last button of his shirt, ripping it open. 

Yoonoh’s eyes flicker away, avoiding the remnants of the scar at the bottom of Taeyong’s navel. The skin around it is smooth, by now, but the darkened skin where the knife hit rock bottom was wide and evident, the colour has yet to fade. 

“Someone was chanting  _ fucking  _ prayers!” Taeyong shrieked, yet again, as if he’s insane. Yoonoh flinched away, both of his hands dangling limply on his side. “As if any type of human-made Gods out there approve of it. Approve of. . . children dissection. Human modification.  _ Evolution.  _ It irked me so fucking much, and all I wanted to do was reach out with my cut off hand and choke them, stick them to the fucking wall, but I can’t, since they cut my right arm in half, yeah?” Taeyong points at Jaehyun with said right hand, “So all I can do is imagine. I imagine killing them in all sorts of ways, and then one day the imagination was so. . . vivid. It was so clear to me, Yoonoh, as if I was actually doing it. The blood felt warm on my crab-like hands, the metal tinge of blood was actually wafting through my nostrils, and even weirder, Minhyung was there, too, covered in blood splatters. His hair was sticking to his forehead, either from the sweat or the blood, neither of those easily distinguishable, as you know.”

“That’s when I realize it wasn’t an imagination, anymore.”

“Taeyong-”

“So I killed  _ everyone  _ I came across. And then I came home and snapped that old hag’s neck off of her joints, and it felt- thrilling. But wrong!” Taeyong claps, insanity spilling through his graceful eyelashes. Jaehyun feels his stomach churn. “It was a  _ wrong  _ sense of thrilling, and I was  _ wrong  _ to ever think it was,” the older continues, in a tone mocking all the scolding he’s been drilled through. Taeyong wipes his forehead over-dramatically, and this is where Jaehyun feels like something’s off. But it was too late for him, evidently.

“How about that, Yoonoh? Why wouldn’t you want to go through the same mental rollercoaster we all did?”

“Fuck-” Jaehyun tried to leap away from his current position only to crouch in pain, holding his feet close to his torso. Where he was standing before, a bullet-hole formed, its contents still caged somewhere in the soles of Jaehyun’s feet--or his calf, if the weapon Sicheng gave them was evidently,  _ that  _ strong--and Taeyong strut over to take a quick peek from the broken glass tile. 

Sungchan’s eyes met his, through his thermal goggles, which the younger soon discarded, and Taeyong gave him a small smile as the younger pointed at him with frantic gestures, the weapon in his hand long forgotten. 

Jaehyun was chuckling from behind him, like a madman, and Taeyong assumed at that point that it’d probably be wise for him to keep an eye on the enemy. 

“How is it that-” he cringes, and Taeyong weighs whether Yoonoh’s face changed because of the gravity of his next words or the bullet lodged deep somewhere in his bones. “You get to turn back on your words and I don’t?”

“Huh?” Taeyong coughs up, offended. What the fuck does he mean-

“I gave you nothing of the sort, Jung Yoonoh,” Taeyong steps back, frowning. “I know myself well enough to never give you promises. Since the day I was born, I knew I can’t live up to anything, and there’s that. In what world would I disappoint you on  _ purpose-” _

“We promised that we won’t hurt each other, did we not?” Yoonoh’s voice cracked, and Taeyong noticed how he’s halfway to breaking down. Taeyong made two people go through that today. Maybe his plan isn’t as foolproof as he initially thought--though he never thought that, he reminds himself. “And I didn’t?” Taeyong questions, still unable to wrap his head around the situation. “If my friends decided to back me up and look for me to ensure I’m not a dead sack of meat the next time they see me, how is it  _ me  _ hurting you?”

“After everything that's happened,  _ hyung,  _ I thought that you’d at least still think of me as someone equal to you. Someone you’d never harm as much as you won’t harm yourself,” the younger continues, legs folded inside so he’s allowed easier access to holding the palm of his feet. “Did my punch to your gut harm you  _ that  _ much? Yoonoh, you’re not making sense right now,” Taeyong deadpanned. 

“Are we playing fucking idiots, right now, Taeyong?” Jaehyun asks, tilting his head up to look at the older as if he’s the sun itself, exactly at 12PM, staring down at him. “Who’s the fucking idiot here-  _ you  _ helped some mad lads dissect my friends, Yoonoh! If they want to shoot you, by their own accord, then I won’t  _ stop  _ them. It’s not like we’re the only ones who had a falling out, Jung Yoonoh--they followed me because their ideals are closest to mine, and the rest stayed with you because they’re fucking unsure. There’s nothing more to this entire ordeal than that, why are you saying things as if I don’t  _ understand  _ something?”

“Because you don’t?” Jaehyun retaliates, kneeling on both his knees to try and stabilize himself. Taeyong notices the effort to stand up, yet he lets the younger struggle on his own. “Enlighten me.”

“Do you  _ not  _ believe me when I said I’m in love with you? Is that not reason enough? I’ve been telling you, time and time again, that I can protect you from the heat of humanity’s hatred--if it’s only you. You protecting all those kids who,  _ unfortunately  _ were in the same lab you were dissected in; is  _ dangerous.  _ It’s beyond  _ my  _ control, and I can’t watch you die like that. Now do you understand?” Jaehyun shoves his index finger over Taeyong’s shoulder, and the older watches him do so while an emotional conflict rises within him. 

“I don’t believe you  _ anymore,”  _ Taeyong fixed, shoving the pointing fingers away, “I used to. Past fucking tense, Yoonoh. You can’t love me and deny my feelings for everyone else, you know that? You can’t say you care about me and  _ force  _ me to turn a blind eye towards things I desperately want to keep afloat. And you can’t love  _ me  _ and leave it at that. We don’t need protection, for fuck’s sake, we need. . . assurance. You’re acting as if we haven’t fought for ourselves for over a whole decade! It’s not like I’ve been protecting them,” Taeyong gestured to Jaehyun’s bleeding soles, “they’ve also been actively protecting me.”

“I know we used to not know how it feels, Yoonoh, but,” Taeyong flinches as he feels his own shoulder’s tension leaving, “I suppose I’ve found a family.”

This seemed to strike a chord, however, and Taeyong finds himself building up the shields ten times faster than before. Yoonoh spared him a betrayed glance, and Taeyong felt his stomach churn. “You chose them over me?”

“Only because you made me! There was no reason to choose anyone over the other, I just didn’t want them to die,” Taeyong steps away, yet again, even when Jaehyun made no show of moving. “I could’ve died, too?” Yoonoh pointed at his bleeding feet. 

Taeyong stops the chortle of laughter that was about to surface with how they both use Sungchan’s accurate shot as an example, both in their own way of seeing the light. 

“. . .” Taeyong looked back up to the still and unstable younger man, “. . .but you didn’t.”

“Taeyong-”

“Okay! Fine. This one’s not on you, ultimately, but- well- there’s always a pinch of everyone’s fault in a grand misunderstanding. To put it simply, since I’ve felt at home with my friends and consider them closer than any family I’ve ever made, I thought, well, you’d have the same support system by now. You know, so you won’t plunge too deep into your manipulative tendencies, and you’d have someone who could pull you back up,” Taeyong huffs, crouching to avoid eye-contact, scratching the top of his head absent-mindedly as his mind drifts back to Minhyung, “but a few people have proven to me today that my thoughts are. . . mostly wrong.”

“You fucking think?” Yoonoh scoffs, falling onto his butt unceremoniously. Taeyong winces at how bad it must’ve hurt, though said nothing about it as he focuses more on how Yoonoh is sitting in his own pool of blood. “I’m fucking  _ sure,”  _ Taeyong corrects, leaning his chin upon his opened palm. 

“It doesn’t write out the fact that you thought of killing my friends solely because they weigh me down, though,” Taeyong comments, offhandedly, and Yoonoh flipped him off. “I was fucking depressed, what else am I supposed to think? Better yet, none of your friends’ friends,” Jaehyun emphasizes, “who lives with me in my safe house uttered any thoughts and alternatives. I didn’t feel bad about it either, though. Maybe that’s. . . where my fault lies.”

“You don’t feel bad that you’re out to kill Guanheng and Yangyang even when Dejun’s ass is living with you and Doyoung-”

“As I was fucking saying, you ass hat,” Yoonoh kicks Taeyong with his unharmed leg, wincing as the pain shoots him yet again, as acute as it was the first time. Taeyong grinned. “No one told me it was a bad fucking idea.  _ Probably  _ because they’re talking to each other behind our back and they’d alert Hendery and Yangyang anytime I enter my goddamn car.”

“Serves you right, acting like an overpowered five year old,” Taeyong swats his other leg away, jeering at the younger as he curls over in pain. “Wouldn’t happen if you at least have an ounce of communication fucking skills, Taeyong!”

Taeyong knows damn well Yoonoh is just raising his voice from the wound, but he felt very much attacked, at this point. Luckily for him, Sungchan announced his arrival with a warning shot which strayed a bit too far for it to be unintentional. 

_ “Hyung!”  _ he jogs over, completely ignoring the existence of Jaehyun as if he’s professionally trained to do so. Taeyong keenly watches as Sungchan crouches in front of him, noticing from his small body language that there’s something more he needs to dig about this kid--and Yoonoh. “Yangyang and Hendery told me they’re ready for the. . .” Only now do Sungchan acknowledge Jaehyun’s existence, sparing him a glance as he lowers the intensity of his voice, “you know.”

Sungchan pulls the weapon he’s been dangling over his shoulder, menacingly putting it to Jaehyun’s pristine and clean shirt, a little bit below his beating heart.

“Sicheng _ -ge  _ told us this works best for long-ranges, but I’m pretty sure a murderous weapon all works the same when it comes in contact with a sack of living meat, isn’t it?” he questions, and Taeyong had to yank him backwards to stop him from proceeding with his taunts. “Sungchan,” Taeyong chuckled, “we’re bringing him alive.”

Jaehyun caught something between Sungchan’s scrutinizing eyes before he backed off, shouldering the gun he previously pointed towards the older man.

“And you told me you don’t actively brainwash them to hate me?” Yoonoh scoffed at Taeyong, and the eldest shrugged at the pointless comment. 

“Sungchan’s different. He literally exists to hate on people.”

“Wish I could’ve shot him somewhere more accurate,” Sungchan tsk-ed, shoving Jaehyun’s shoulder as if to bully him. Taeyong can’t help the laughter, yet again. “It’s not like you’re thinking of having children, do you,  _ hyung?”  _ he continues, still facing Jaehyun even when there’s literally no one else he’d say those things to, in the room.

“Ever-so-polite,” Jaehyun huffs, “maybe you don’t raise your kids  _ that  _ badly, Taeyong.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I GOT SO NERVOUS UPLOADING THIS SOMEONE HOLD MEJKNFDSKJNFKJDSDNFJ


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